Are you waiting or past placed family with A Child’s Hope? If you would like to be a part of a support group for waiting parents and for birth parents we invite you to join us at our upcoming 2013 organizational meeting!
Hopeful Parents was started in 2001 as a support group for waiting adoptive parents, past placed parents and birth mothers.
Waiting to adopt can be stressful, but support through others waiting and those who have adopted is a great way to deal with the stress! When the group first started, activities were limited to an annual Holiday Celebration held in November, National Adoption Month, and for those families that had adopted that year lead a swearing in and adoption oath.. There were quarterly grab bag showers or “celebrations” for those who had placed in the last four months, and there was a spring fund raiser which was a tea, featuring all babies and their mothers from the last year. For awhile the tea was held at the home of Parker Herring, and then tea was moved to a historic home in Raleigh.
In 2004, one of the placed adoptive families asked for help in forming the group as a nonprofit and in that year the first slate of officers were elected and programs were held every year through 2012. In November 2012, the officers of Hopeful Parents asked that they be relieved of their positions so they could form another group, NC Adoptive Families. This group is for families who have adopted and live in NC and plan to have play dates for kids as well as support meeting for parents.
Over the years in Hopeful Parents there has been other activities including: gift bags for birth mothers at the hospital; a birth mother fund, an annual CPR class, and a maternity clothes closet in addition, each year there was either a “Cookies with Santa” or “Potluck with Santa.”
There is interest in the existing non-profit Hopeful Parents being revived in a version of what existed before, and the most interest has been expressed on a monthly support group for waiting families and other ways to support those waiting.
PLEASE CHECK HOPEFUL PARENTS & A CHILD’S HOPE FACEBOOK PAGES FOR DATE AND TIME.